


the devil you know

by Griftings



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Summary : Jaqen Pines Briefly and then Gets Laid, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dirty Talk, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, First Time, Loss of Virginity, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Praise Kink, Season 8 Episode 2 Divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:34:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24410659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griftings/pseuds/Griftings
Summary: She moves softly, quietly, with the care of a mouse, but he still hears the patter of her boots against the floor, the sound of fabric shifting as her cloak sways with her movements; the whistle as something cuts through the air with violent trajectory towards his head. He reaches behind himself and catches the staff before it can crack into the base of his skull; the skin of his palm stings with the force, and when he turns to glance over his shoulder, eyebrow raised, he spies a disappointed frown cross Arya's face before she smothers it."A girl would give her comrade a concussion before the dead arrive," he observes wryly, releasing the staff and turning back to face the window once more.Or, the one where a man who has been named Jaqen H'ghar comes to Winterfell as a representative for the House of Black and White in the war against the White Walkers; and with regards to the matter of losing her virginity, Arya chooses the better of her two options.
Relationships: Jaqen H'ghar/Arya Stark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 279





	the devil you know

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i kinda just wanted to see if i could write porn without adding a bunch of feelings to it. idk if i succeeded. ooooooopps.  
> the veneer of plot is thin here folks

She moves softly, quietly, with the care of a mouse, but he still hears the patter of her boots against the floor, the sound of fabric shifting as her cloak sways with her movements; the whistle as something cuts through the air with violent trajectory towards his head. He reaches behind himself and catches the staff before it can crack into the base of his skull; the skin of his palm stings with the force, and when he turns to glance over his shoulder, eyebrow raised, he spies a disappointed frown cross Arya's face before she smothers it.

"A girl would give her comrade a concussion before the dead arrive," he observes wryly, releasing the staff and turning back to face the window once more. The snow stretches out into the darkness; his chosen room was a herald's once, and overlooks the walls of the keep. He faces the south and does not suffer the sight of the Dothraki and Unsullied camps, which congregate along the keep's Northern face to better await their foe's arrival. He has, unimpeded before him, winter.

"I thought I could finally surprise you," she says, sounding annoyed, and moves to stand beside him at the window.

"Clever girls go barefoot," he reminds her, squinting into the night, and she scoffs.

"Perhaps in summer. In winter, the clever girls wear socks and boots so they don't lose their toes." She shifts, impatient, when he does not turn his attention away from the window. After a moment she sighs and, with clearly less fanfare than she'd been anticipating, shoves the staff she's holding towards him. "Look," she says; from any other mouth it would be a request but from her it is, of course, a demand.

He raises an eyebrow again but obliges. The grip feels good in his hands, now that he is not catching it to keep from being brained. Dragonglass blades on either end; his interest piqued, he finally leaves his vigil at the window to walk towards the middle of the room to spin the staff between his hands, feeling the balance and the weight. Dragonglass is difficult to grow accustomed to, and even more difficult to smith; lighter than steel and much easier to break, it cannot be handled with the same force, and so too is it difficult to incorporate into weaponry designed for metals.

This, though. This is good.

"The staff is quality," he admits. "Especially for having been made on short notice. The ease of balance is surprising and the two blades counterweight each other well." He spins it once, twice more, before tossing it back to Arya suddenly. Her reflexes are much faster than they had been when she'd first joined him in Braavos; she catches it easily, adjusts her grip fluidly, and then she is spinning it once herself.

"I drew up the design," she says. She has the self-control to not grin, but not to keep the smugness from her voice at the praise. "Gendry fashioned it for me. I just got it from him."

Gendry. The smith. Something dark and ugly rears within him, but unlike her his self-control is impeccable. He is sure no hint of his unreasonable ire reaches his voice when he tells her, "A girl can tell the smith that a man is impressed with his work." He returns to the window and away from her.

Arya does not see this for the dismissal he intends for it to be. She joins him once more, staring out of it as well. "I'd asked if he could make two, one for both of us, but…" She frowns, her mouth tightening, her brows furrowing. "I don't think he'll have time."

As soon as it comes his irritation leaves, and leaves some small manner of guilt in its wake. They both look out into the darkness. Somewhere out there, closer than either of them would like, the dead walk.

 _Valar morghulis,_ but what is dead should stay so. Death should be final; despite what the fire priestess thinks of his God, He has had no hand in this Night King’s rise. The wights and Walkers are an affront to His will, blasphemy to the God of Death. Of course a man had joined a girl’s cause. Of course.

It would seem his assistance would be for naught, though.

They had both been in the war council held by her brother and his Queen. They had both listened to the plannings, heard the statistics, counted the numbers. _At least we'll die together,_ the wildling Tormund had said, and Arya had turned and looked to _him,_ her former Master who had trained her, for reassurance, for some argument against this statement; and he, whose judgement she has always trusted if not his motivation, had no reassurance to give.

"No," he agrees, his voice soft, "there will not be time."

She frowns down at the staff in her hands before thrusting it out towards him with a decisive, "You should take it. You're better with staves than I am."

More guilt.

She cannot be blamed for the feelings he harbors, the feelings _no one_ should not have-- save that he has not been _no one_ for some time, though he has tried to deny selfhood for so long. His jealousy of the smith boy is not her fault; that onus lies solely upon himself. And… they will both die, and likely sooner rather than later. It would be cruel to spurn the attention of her friendship just because he wishes selfishly that it were more. He should not deny either of them companionship in what may be their last hours.

He shakes his head; she frowns harder but still he does not take the staff when she offers it once more. "A girl is more capable with the staff than she believes," he says with a shrug; in truth, he would prefer her to keep the weapon with reach, to use the length to keep the grasping claws at bay. "It is her design. She should wield the weapon her clever mind has conceived."

Arya brightens at the praise, though no one untrained in the lying game would know it to look at her. She does not simper or giggle or smile; rather, there is the gentlest of lightening to the slope of her shoulders, the barest upturn of her lips. To anyone else but him she might look only vaguely amused; since it is him, he knows that she is most pleased.

He enjoys to see her happy. It causes a stutter in his heart, which he immediately stomps down brutally.

"A man does not know how much time they have left before the dead arrive," he says after a long minute has passed in silence, the both of them looking again out the window. “What little there is, a girl should be with her family.”

"I am," she answers, the delivery sharper than the gentle reassurance the words might otherwise imply. He glances at her, reads her expression. This thing she says is, to her, true. He bows his head in acknowledgement, humbled.

His reception in the place of Arya's birth has been chilly since he’d appeared at the keep’s gates in heavy black-and-white furs and with an iron coin, representative of his House in this War for the Dawn. None of her brother's advisers know what to make of him or his intentions; her sister simply stares at him coolly whenever they are within proximity; the man they call the Hound growls when he is near. The boy in the chair… Bran’s eyes slide over him, as if he is not even there. As if he is no one, truly. To be fair though, this is how Bran seems to treat most people around him, even his kin.

He stays in his room, mostly. No point in training with the knights or wildlings or Unsullied below. Wights will not attack with blades or minds of strategy. They will _swarm._ His suggestions that they cease their drills against each other to conserve energy or prevent accidental injury were flatly ignored. He practices his own swordwork with the air, the shadows; he is an assassin, not a warrior, and he will not fight with the ragtag army on the frontlines. No, he has given himself the duty of patrolling the halls of the keep once the fighting starts, securing the quiet corners, in the darkness where he works best. And he has always worked best alone. This seclusion has admittedly not helped much to endear himself to Arya's peers, though he has likewise given them no concrete reason to disdain him, save for whatever she may have told them of her time in Braavos.

Which, judging by the fact that he still yet _lives,_ cannot be much. Given the affection her older brother favors her with, he thinks that if the bastard King knew how much of Arya’s blood he’s spilled during her training, how many bruises he’s given her, his head would likely have been separated from his body by now.

He likes to watch her, though. In the spare amount of times he has lifted his self-imposed restrictions. He has only ever seen her timid, or wary, or bristling; until now, in the place her heart calls home, he has not seen her truly _happy._ He likes the confidence she walks through the halls with, likes to see her smiles or hear her laughs when she is with her siblings. (He _does not_ like the lingering looks she and the smith boy send each other, and with each passing day it becomes harder for him to attribute this to the protectiveness of a previous mentor.)

“Besides,” Arya says suddenly and with a sigh, “Jon is off with his lady dragon and Sansa is trying to finish organizing the storerooms. She’s sealing some of the grainstores off with ice.” She shrugs. “Neither of them would be like to enjoy the intrusion of my presence.”

He tilts his head at her. “A girl’s younger brother?”

She shrugs again, her expression flat. “In the godswood already.” Her voice takes a curiously harsh turn. “If _you_ are suffering to have me as well then I can go bother someone else. Gendry is probably still--”

“ _No,_ ” he says sharply, decisive and brooking no argument. Arya, who seems to live to argue with him, blinks in surprise before seeming to subside in the face of this uncharacteristic emotion when his norm is mild neutrality. He clears his throat, suddenly feeling most uncomfortable, and when he speaks again it is softer, less aggressive. “A girl is welcome to stay. A man appreciates the company.”

She hesitates before nodding, and after she sets the staff carefully against the wall she joins him on the window seat. The two of them sit across from each other on the bench of the windowsill, staring once more out into the dark.

He _does_ appreciate the company, he realizes. He has always enjoyed to be near her, even when he was her Master and she was so stubbornly set against her lessons. Multiple times his siblings had expressed worry over her behavior, worry over his tolerance to it; but he had always found that petulance endearing, even as it forced him to discipline her. It is why he had given her so many chances during her tutelage, though truthfully she’d seemed to mock his indulgence of her almost gleefully, considering how with every new chance he gave she found some new way to disobey.

Still. He had cared for Arya anyway, despite that. Enough that it had pained him greatly when he’d finally set his sister on her heels. _Do not let her suffer,_ he’d bid the waif, because though the girl was a hellion, disrespectful and headstrong, he could not help but remember how she’d begged of him outside Harrenhal, seeming so small and broken, _Please don’t go,_ and how she’d wept in agony when she’d believed him to drink the poison meant for her after her reckless insubordination with Trant. Even now he can hear the frightened shout, the way her voice had broken as she’d pressed her hands to his chest as though to press life back into him. _He’s my friend,_ she’d cried. He wonders if she will weep so sadly again if he dies in battle tonight.

It had been moving, though outwardly he gave no indication, had done his best to not let it affect his behavior towards her. But though his _behavior_ had not changed, for that was a thing he could control, he could not control the change within his heart.

It had been so long, he’d been no one for so long. He had forgotten what it was like, to have a friend.

He cannot now think of another person that he would prefer to spend the last peaceful hours of his life with.

It is sad, or strange, but he almost hopes that he finds his end tonight, fighting the blasphemous dead in the name of his God, with his lovely girl at his side. The House had become so quiet for him after she’d fled from it; its halls, he’s found, have dissatisfied him since she’d left them empty. The purpose he’d found once in his work seems so much less encompassing now than it had before.

Sometimes, it seems, that when she left, she took his faith with her.

If he survives this battle tonight, he thinks to himself as they sit in comfortable quiet, then he will savor this moment. He will remember it when looking for comfort, after she has left him once more. He wonders idly what piece of him she will steal then.

It is nearly like meditation, a calm stillness which overtakes him, a contemplation of life and death and the impermanence of flesh, the appreciation of her presence; until after several minutes it is broken, suddenly and violently, when Arya, still looking out the window, announces, “I’ve never lain with a man before.”

He blinks slowly before turning to stare at her. She turns to look at him as well. There’s a wariness to her expression, a set to her jaw, brows already furrowed as if she anticipates being disappointed and is preparing herself for it. And, beneath that, perhaps some small sort of hope.

“Lovely girl,” he starts hesitantly, then closes his mouth, unsure of how to respond in a way she will not find disfavorable. He does not know what to say. This is… He had not anticipated this.

“I want to know what that’s like, before I die,” she continues, when it is clear he has no immediate reply for her. “And I’m probably going to die very soon. You’ve taught me-- _shown_ me a lot. I want you to show me this, too.”

His throat is dry. He swallows. Her eyes flicker down briefly to follow the motion before raising once more to his own. Had she been sitting there thinking about this the entire time? Is that why she came to see him at all?

She is no longer his student. In this, he is bound not by the rules of the House; directed here by His will, after the battle if he returns to Braavos he cannot be punished for consorting with a girl so clearly favored by Him. If the God did not want her alive, she would have died at the hands of his sister, and his other siblings can only accept this fact, as he himself has. It would not be an offense to lay with her. It is not as though this is the first time he has considered this reasoning.

And… he could want it. If he did not force control over himself. He could want to touch and be touched. He _does_ want it, damn him, though he has tried not to, has tried not to give in to either the lust growing in his loins or the affection growing in his heart. He had assumed that neither of those things would be welcome.

Affection for her, though, is easier to explain. To justify to himself. It no longer guilts him to consider her with affection. Attraction, however...

Arya licks her lips, just very lightly, to wet them.

“Lovely girl,” he says, the words coming out more hoarse than he’d anticipated. “Perhaps the… the timing is not wise.”

She cocks her head at him. “That’s not a no,” she points out, brow raised. He swallows again. It _isn’t_ a no. _Damn him._ After a moment where perhaps she is waiting to see if he is angry and then determines that he is not, she surges forward and kisses him. She, he knows, has never been in the habit of doing things by halves. Once she has decided for herself a goal, she sets herself upon it stubbornly.

Her mouth is hot against his own, her movements clumsy and inexperienced; when he groans in surprise her tongue takes opportunity of his parted lips to slip inside.

Now, it seems, that goal is he himself, and he has been stubbornly set upon.

This is genuinely not how he expected this night to play out.

“Girl,” he murmurs in between one of her kisses. “Lovely girl--” She rises from the windowsill, her lips still pressing to his, to climb closer, her hands raising to cup either side of his face, tilting it upwards as she moves. The chill of the North, ever present, is less noticeable with her body so close to his, but when she makes to settle into his lap he pulls away, breath heavy, with a sharp, “ _Arya._ ”

She stills. Her hands drop away slowly from his face. When she leans away from him her face is empty despite the flush of her cheeks and the way her breath comes heavy. Empty of face but the disappointment is clear in her eyes, genuine and pained. His own lungs heave, his cheeks tingle from the touch of her hands. Her lips are wet, red, and just slightly swollen; while his gaze is still focused on them she takes the bottom one between her teeth and chews. Her mouth, he now knows, tastes of snow and blood.

“The timing is not wise,” he tells her again, quietly, the closest thing to a rebuke that his mind can conjure, for despite the logic behind his rejection his body wants hers still; and while she is so obviously willing, that want is difficult to deny. His hands ache to settle upon her hips, his palms itch with the desire to feel her shape. He had not expected this. He had not dreamed to think it possible.

Her eyes soften, grey as the winter sky outside. She reminds him in a whisper, “There may not be another time than this.”

Unfortunately, she is not wrong.

When he dips his chin, bows his head so that he does not have to look at her, she sighs and lifts her hands again, this time threading her fingers through his hair. She pulls his lowered head forward until his brow rests against her chest. He cannot feel her breasts beneath the leather chestpiece that she wears, for her armor is made for function, not form; nonetheless his next breath inhales on a shudder, his body shivering for proximity to her own.

“I want this,” she murmurs against his scalp. “And I would prefer it with you.”

He is not as strong as he would like to pretend he is. Perhaps he never has been, when it comes to her. His hands touch her side, lightly at first and then more firmly when she does not pull away, when the contact fills his veins with warmth. It is an innocent touch, a transitional one-- he can use it to pull her closer, or to push her away. He must only decide which.

His breath stills in his lungs when she continues, “But if you won’t, I’ll find someone who will.”

Immediately his mind is supplied with the image of her beneath the smith, the only other male within the keep that he thinks she would consent to trust with her body. He has seen the glances tossed between the two of them, the brief lingering of her eyes on the boy’s biceps and the _far less brief_ lingering of Gendry’s upon her backside whenever she leaves his presence. That Arya seeks his own attention more often and more aggressively than the smith’s has only mildly soothed his irritation with them.

Still, it is not difficult to imagine. Arya, flushed and panting as the smith boy touched his hands to her flesh, as he kissed her, as he moved inside her.

His hands tighten at her waist, fingers clenching as if to dig in, to hold her there. There is a growl in his throat that he does not recognize as his own until he feels the vibration of it against the leather of her armor.

“So,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice, as if she is reading his heart and finds the jealousy in it meanly amusing, “you can get over yourself and _do it_ yourself, the way I want you to. Or I can go and see if Gendry is still in the forge--"

A tug of her waist and she’s deposited into his lap with a squeak, obviously not expecting the force, though she does not complain when he presses their lips together again and indeed as soon as she has caught her bearings she is kissing him most fiercely. It is obvious that this is an activity she has little knowledge of but much enthusiasm for; he growls again, his cock beginning to stiffen in his breeches, to think of how _enthusiastic_ she may be for actual coupling. “Mmm,” she hums after several kisses, wet and messy, for though he tries to direct the movements of her mouth with his own to teach her she still stubbornly moves in whatever direction she wishes, as she always has in all things. She sounds most pleased. “That’s what I thought.”

“A girl mocks him,” he accuses, drifting away from her mouth to instead place kisses upon her jaw, her throat. There is a spot beneath her chin that he has spent the last few weeks quietly contemplating from a distance, and he sets himself to it now that he has the opportunity, suckling and nipping. She gasps in surprise at the feeling, panting as though she is already being fucked and not just necked at. He will have to be gentle so as not to overwhelm her-- warrior she may be of heart, but maiden is she of body.

Selfishness aside, good that she had come to him for this and not the smith. Knowing Arya and her penchant for throwing herself headfirst into everything, he will have to coax gentleness into the act for she will not think to want it, and while he cannot imagine Gendry as being violent or purposefully cruel, neither can he see the smith being any less forceful or blunt in this than he is with his hammer.

No, he thinks to himself as he bites at that spot beneath her chin, then soothes the sting with his tongue. This is a task that will require deft hands and finesse. If they are to die tonight and she will only have opportunity to experience it once, he will make it as good for her as he can.

“A girl _teases_ him,” she corrects, already breathless, already shifting restlessly in his lap. Her hands are back in his hair, pulling at the roots. “I knew you’d give in if I made you jealous. So bloody predictable sometimes.”

He can’t even find it within himself to be annoyed. Obviously she is not wrong, and they are both to benefit greatly from it. When his mouth moves lower, kissing down her throat to where the collar of her shirt begins, she whimpers, a plaintive little sound that then makes her pause. “Oh,” she says, sounding surprised. “I’ve never made a noise like that before.” At his questioning hum, she starts, “When I-- _ah!_ ” Another shivering sigh as he sucks at the corner of her jaw. “W-when I touch myself I’m quiet.”

He groans at that, “ _Lovely girl,_ ” because the _thought of it,_ and then she pulls his face back to her own and they are kissing again with fervor. No, this is absolutely not how he’d expected the night to go, but he cannot find it within himself to complain.

If they had but time, he would devote hours to the exploration of her neck alone. He would suck marks and bite bruises into each inch of flesh, make the removal of clothing _torture_ for her, until she writhed and threatened, for he knows better than to expect her to beg. He would fuck her slowly, methodically, until every drag of his cock inside of her became a slide for how wet she was from as many releases as he could prise out of her.

But they do not have time, and he can neither leave her a quivering mess nor exhaust himself with the task of giving her body attention. Soon, sooner than he would like, sooner than the gravity of this act deserves, they will be called upon to fight, and their muscles must be steady.

“Bed,” he tells her, and she gasps in excitement at the implication of the command, but then she counters, “Clothes first.” The thought of her nude, of finally feeling the weight of her breasts in his hands, of seeing bared the cleft of her lower lips, has him conceding.

“Clothes first,” he agrees. Though it is with difficulty and reluctance that she slips from his lap, and their mouths barely part. He has never kissed another so ardently or consumingly as he kisses her now, has never _wanted_ so ardently or consumingly. They pick at the laces of her leathers, fingers stumbling and tripping over themselves and each other, and she laughs against his lips at the absurdity of it, but eventually her chestpiece loosens enough to be shed, and from there it is simple for her to pull the shirt above her head.

Though she is a woman grown, eight and ten, her breasts are small, but pert. Her nipples are stiff and pink and even as she works to undo her pants he leans forward, still sitting upon the windowsill, and takes one into his mouth. Now the sound she makes is a squeak, and her hands leave the fastenings of her breeches to grab once more at his hair, to thread her fingers through it, to hold him in place. It is unnecessary; he has no desire currently to move.

The little bud rolls across his tongue, smooth and pliable, as he mouths at it, manipulates it with his lips. He must take her by the hips again, but now it is to hold her still; she trembles where she stands. “ _Jaqen,_ ” she sighs, the first time she has said this name she’s given him this night, and when he groans around her nipple the vibration make her say it again, and louder, “ _Jaqen!_ ”

He switches to her other breast, leaving the first wet and glistening with saliva, but does not leave it wholly unattended; as he kisses and sucks now the left, his hand lifts to pinch at the abandoned right, feeling the tiny wrinkles beneath his thumb as it stiffens further under the attention. She gasps and moans, hands tugging at his hair as he works her nipples with lips and fingers, and he wonders what glorious song she will sing for him when his tongue touches to her slit instead.

The noise she makes is annoyed when his touch leaves her breast, his fingers damp from the saliva he’d left on it, but her disappointment does not last long when he instead puts his hands to use finishing the job of removing her breeches. He fumbles with the clasp, unwilling to pull away entirely from her breasts, still suckling, his eyes closed with concentration as he commits the sounds she makes to memory, determines which direction of his tongue pleases her most, and after a moment she helps him, her own hands leaving his hair. The two of them together manage to undo the fastenings and then he _does_ leave her nipple to watch, breathless with anticipation, as they yank the waist of the breeches down over her hips.

Her cunt is half-hidden by hair, not shaved down like whores tend to do, but trimmed rather more like the wives of lords, more for maintenance of hygiene than aesthetic; that her thatch has been trimmed at all suggests that she has indeed put some manner of thought into taking this action tonight. The dark curls are springy, but damp towards the center, and hold in the earthy smell of her wetness. Sitting as he is, he is of the perfect height to lean in and sniff between her legs.

Another squeak, this less pleased and more startled than the previous. “That’s _weird,_ ” she hisses, but does not push him away when he sniffs her again. He can smell the arousal, the heady sour-sweet scent of wet quim. Rarely in his life has he sought intercourse outside of whatever sex may be required by a contract, but even when pressed to do so for a mission he has always enjoyed the act of pleasuring a woman with his mouth. The taste itself he can give or take, but the _sounds_ they make, the way their muscles tense beneath his hands as he holds them down so they don’t buck against his face in ecstasy--

“Lay back on the bed,” he growls, mouth watering at the thought of _Arya_ splayed out before him like that, a feast for him to enjoy, and when she turns eagerly to obey he’s faced with the sweet rounded cheeks of her ass, firm and shapely with muscle. It is terribly easy to give in to the urge to bite one of those cheeks, not hard enough to break the skin but enough that she gasps in surprise, that he feels the flesh between his lips. When she stumbles away from him, looking over her shoulder in astonishment, the spot is already red, little divots in the shape of teeth.

“You _bit_ me,” she says, sounding rather like she’s not sure if she’s offended or if she found the act enticing. “On the _ass._ What the _fuck._ ”

“Lay back on the bed,” he tells her again, firmer, the voice he’d used to give her commands in Braavos. She looks as though she may argue, the instinctive urge to disregard those commands rising, but then he unfastens the buckling of his own breeches, and he can see the moment where she spies the outline of his cock, hard and pressing against the fabric, for her eyes widen and her lip goes between her own teeth.

The immediacy of her obedience is wondrous, and she peels her pants off entirely as she goes, leaving her clothing strown across the floor between the window and his bed. If she is nervous as she sits upon the edge of the bed facing him, he cannot tell; her muscles tremble, yes, but by the hungry look on her face this seems more in giddy anticipation than fear.

Slowly, he stands. As he nears her she lowers herself back onto the sheets in gradual degrees, still chewing on her lip. Her eyes are wide, watching with eager attention, as he kneels between her legs, still dressed himself. Her thighs are warm beneath his palms when he sets his hands upon them, spreading them open wider so that he can fit better in the space they leave behind. Laying back like this, with her hole in a more accessible position, the scent of her cunt is even stronger. Her lower lips are pinkish-red, slightly swollen with the stimulation of arousal, and already damp with feminine juice.

And he hasn’t even touched her yet.

If they had the time, he would have her with agonizing slowness. He would draw the sex out over the course of hours. He would instruct her to touch herself while he watched, to show him how she pleasures her own flesh when she is alone, so that he could then show her how _he_ can pleasure her, and better, such that any orgasm she brings herself to in the future feels lacking for the lack of him.

But they don’t have time. They may not have time even for this, this selfish indulgence to taste, but she is a maiden and even if she does not fear the act as some maidens do, her courage will make her frame no bigger, nor his any smaller. They are of a significant difference in size, at least as much as would be between herself and the smith, and he wants her to find only joy in this, only bliss. His mouth will make her wetter and looser, and it will hurt less to take his length after he has brought her closer to the edge.

And besides. In this one thing, perhaps he has earned a bit of selfishness.

He sniffs again, his cheek at her thigh, his nose just barely nudging the moist skin of her vulva as he inhales. “Stop that,” Arya demands from above him, her voice shaking. When he glances up at her she’s flushed, brows furrowed. She looks embarrassed at the attention. He holds her gaze, eyes trained on hers, as he leans down the scant distance it takes inhale the scent directly from the source, nostrils flaring as he breathes her in. She squirms, her legs shifting to either side of him, but her frown does not look _displeased_ so much as unsure, as if she is perhaps wondering if now _she_ is not the one being mocked.

Still staring at her, almost _daring_ her to look away, he opens his mouth to touch his tongue to the hood of her clit.

It’s as though an electric shock jolts through her muscles, her back arching instantly with a cry and her legs slamming closed around his head, thighs pressing into his ears. The rocking of her cunt against his lips seems involuntary. He gives her no quarter, no time to steel herself; from the first taste he is addicted, and cannot get enough.

Her slit leaks, little drips of feminine fluid, as he laps hungrily at her, eager to sip from her girlish cup. His tongue spears between her folds to tickle at her clit one moment and then sink into the heat of her hole the next, the muscles tight and squeezing around him whenever he ventures inside of her. Yes, he thinks, she will require some working open to take him. The flesh is slick with wetness, his tongue sliding about her folds with a smooth glide, and her heels dig into his shoulders, her knees shaking in the air.

And the _noises_ she makes, rich and guttural. He would never believe that she is silent when she pleases herself, for the sounds that she makes now.

“Jaqen,” she gasps, grinding against his mouth as he tongues into her slit, his teeth pressing against her labia, “Jaqen! Oh, _fuck._ ” He knows that no guard patrols near his room, he had picked it for this reason, but with her volume he wonders if someone will not come to investigate. After all, they are so very close to a window, and sound can carry.

 _Let them,_ he thinks, watching her, watching the shifting and bunching of the muscles in her stomach, the way her stiff nipples sway in the air as she undulates into him. Usually he closes his eyes when he performs this task, to do away with the distraction so that he might focus, but he is determined to memorize this, to remember forever the shape her face takes while he is driving her closer to a peak with his mouth. He will soon compare it to the shape it takes when she _does_ peak around his cock. _Let them see what this man does to their princess._

Arya does not act very princessly now. Nor does she carry the reserve and temperance of a Faceless Man. Now she moans and squeals, her eyes closed, her teeth bared; pleasure on her looks much like agony, though the noises she makes betray her enjoyment. And throughout, his name is a mantra upon her lips, a prayer breathed to the heavens. “Jaqen-- J-- oh gods, oh my _fuck,_ Jaqen-- I’m--”

Her pearl is treated to one last lingering kiss before he rises, leaning over where she lays back upon the bed. She whines petulantly, her eyes snapping open to glare at him in confused dismay as he brings his fingers up to his mouth and sucks on them, wetting the digits; it is a different whine that he’s graced with when he runs his slick fore and middle fingers down the length of her slit. It’s hot against his skin and takes only a few swipes for them to become even wetter, even slicker. He plays with the sensitive clit he’d just kissed, rolling it between his fingers as he had her nipple earlier, and watches as her mouth opens, slack-jawed, breathy gasps leaving her as he toys with her pearl.

“Had we but time,” he growls into her ear, relishing the soft whines his fingers draw from her, “a man would make a feast between her legs.” Her hands, previously fisted in the sheets, now shift to grab at his wrist. She doesn’t push him away or pull him closer, but rather seems as though she is desperate for them to stay exactly where they are. He denies this; her eyes widen further, her mouth opens wider, her gasps become even breathier, when one of his fingers breaches into her slit, exploring the warm wet sanctum of her hole. As it moves within her, the noise is loud, wet with suction, moist skin sliding against moist skin. “He would bring her to peaking against his tongue over and over, until he drank his fill of her cunt.”

“Ja-jaq--” She bites her lip and closes her eyes once more, her hips working against his hand as though she is eager for more, and faster. She does not seem pained by the intrusion of his finger. Certainly aided by her arousal, the wetness of her clasp, but he remembers that she’d mentioned touching herself on her own time and may be used to the feeling of fingers. She does not argue when he introduces a second.

“And a man is _so_ thirsty.” When he kisses her she kisses back, desperate, uncoordinated and uncouth. “It would have taken many peaks for her to satisfy that thirst.”

Sweat makes his skin stick to hers when he presses his forehead to her temple. Her hair is damp with it, her face red. From this angle he cannot see how his fingers sink into her, but he can see the motion of his wrists, how her legs are trembling. The heat she puts off is burning him through his clothes. The unclenching of her internal muscles is gradual, for eager though they may be she is still so tight, and while it would be easier to bring her to orgasm and chase that resulting looseness with his cock, he does not know how much time they will be afforded. It would not do, he thinks, for her to find one release before he enters her and then be denied a second while he is inside, if they are called prematurely to arms. Some women require time between their peaks, time during which the sensitivity of sex is painful rather than stimulating, and he does not know if Arya is one of them.

He adds a third finger and moves them until the ease with which they can move is greater, and kisses her throughout. Now he enjoys her sloppy kisses, all heat and tongue, open-mouthed and breathy. It would probably be untoward to ask if she appreciates the taste of her own cunt upon his lips. One of her hands leaves his wrist, lifts to squeeze at her own breast, to pinch the nipple as he had earlier. This is genuinely very much not how he’d expected the night to go.

Arya whines angrily when he pulls away once more, and she leans up on her elbows to glare at him in offense as he stands.

“Keep touching,” he tells her, finally pulling off his own shirt. “And move further up the bed.”

Now that she recognizes his intent she hastens to comply, shifting backwards. By the time he’s working at his breeches, she’s got three of her own fingers continuing the work of stretching out her cunny. There’s a wet smear upon the sheets where she had been before, fluid that dripped from her around his chin and his hand.

“Seven hells,” she says, wide-eyed, as he pulls his breeches and small clothes down and his length bobs upwards, released from the confines of cloth. His cock is painfully hard, swollen with desire, thicker at the base than the head and while it is not the largest of the faces he’s worn, no part of it is small by any means. Even with all of the preparation it will be difficult for her to take fully. He will be surprised if, as a maiden, she will be able to sheath it to the hilt. “Um."

He glances down at it and frowns, then back up at her. “A man can finish her with his mouth,” he assures her. “She does not need to do anything else. Whatever she wishes.” It would be disappointing to not enter her, to not feel that sweet wet cling, but truthfully he could find completion with just his hand rather easily if he touched himself while licking into her. Or perhaps he could ask her to use _her_ mouth; she wouldn’t have to take the head between her lips, she could just use her tongue--

Arya bites her lip as she stares, and she reaches out, pushing away the hand that he’d wrapped around the base. Her fingers are wet from her cunt and he groans softly through gritted teeth but stands still, allowing her to feel the thickness of it, the shape. Experimentally her hand moves across the length, not gripping so much as skimming. The loose skin of it shifts beneath her palm and it is all he can do not to thrust forward. Some of the thin watery musk that comes as a precursor to seed beads up upon the head and drips down the underside.

The moan is ripped from him, explosive, when she leans forward to chase that drip with her tongue. Her nose scrunches, brows furrowing; apparently the taste is not to her liking, but she determinately gives another lick anyway, tonguing at the tip of his cock where that drip originates. “ _A-ahh!_ Lovely girl--"

“No,” she tells him, taking his length in a surer grip. When she speaks, her lips are a teasing flutter against the swollen head. “I want it. I just-- can I be on top?”

He swallows, feeling like a boy again, and nods. “Yes, it-- it should be wetter first, though.”

Arya raises an eyebrow, and the hand that isn’t holding his member snakes down between her own legs. He groans when he sees it. “Feels wet enough to me,” she tells him, attempting blitheness, but the flush across her cheeks deepens, dark against her pale Northern skin. “Unless you mean _this,_ ” and she uses that surer grip upon his cock to stroke it. The motion is slightly too rough, slightly too tight, but he groans again nonetheless as he nods, jaw tight and teeth bared. He had the wherewithal to stop teasing her before _her_ release, but now he wonders if he will be able to restrain his own. How _green_ he would feel, if he were to flood her palm with seed and lose the rigidity necessary to please her.

“Careful,” he warns her, unsure what to do with his hands. “Not so tight.” Finally he settles one of them in her hair, putting his nails to work against her scalp, and she leans into the feeling like a purring cat. “A man can do it himself if she--”

“Should I use my mouth?” she interrupts, apparently annoyed with the implication that she may not be up to the task herself. Before he can answer she puts her lips at the head again and _sucks._ His hand in her hair tightens as he groans again, louder, deeper, and his hips give an aborted thrust to bump his cock against her teeth. The action encourages more of that musky pre, and when it fills her mouth her face scrunches with a scowl. “ _Blegh,_ ” she says, pulling away and spitting the liquid out onto the ground, heedless of the fact that he may very well accidentally step in it. It’s thick, viscous, and a string of it clings stubbornly to her lips. The hand she’d been using to please herself comes up and wipes at her mouth. “No,” she decides, “I _shan’t._ ”

“Just--” he gasps when instead she pumps at him again, the foreskin sliding over the weeping head and pulling that liquid across the rest of the length. The next word comes out as a hiss, “ _Yes._ ”

Encouraged, Arya works him with her hand, finding a rhythm with the movement that seems to please her. It _would_ be better if she used her mouth, or if they had some sort of oil, but within a minute his cock is shiny with wetness and the sound of her jerking it is loud and meaty.

He had not thought to dream that this would be a possibility, her reciprocal want. He’d found contentment in the relationship they’d developed, the rage that had simmered in her towards him cooled with time and distance into something closer to friendship. The desire for more, for _escalation,_ he had buried as best as he could. It would not do to offend her with his attention if it were unwanted.

Judging by how she bites her lip, staring at the way his cock leaks around her fingers, he does not think her very offended at all.

“Alright,” he hisses when he begins to feel a twitching at the base, his testicles tightening as she works him closer to release. “That’s-- enough--”

Arya lets him go, looking almost _disappointed,_ and then considers at the sticky mess of her fingers in annoyance. “Now?” she asks, glancing back up at him, and then _oh gods_ uses those fingers to _touch herself,_ mixing his fluid with hers--

“Now,” he agrees, nearly a growl, and joins her on the bed, laying back and stretching out. He pats his thighs, indication of where she should go. Though their dwindling time is an excuse he could use to explain his speed, he knows it would be a lie. The urge to fondle himself is too strong to resist; his own hand finds his length, moves slowly from base to tip, squeezing lightly when Arya moves towards him on her knees. Only now does that nervousness that maidens tend towards seem to take her, even as she pulls herself up to straddle his hips, something unsure and timid pulling at the corners of her frown.

“Lovely girl,” he whispers, and the hand not holding himself rises to touch at her stomach, her breast. There are silvery scars that stretch across her abdomen, ridges beneath his palm. ( _Do not let her suffer,_ he’d told his sister; he cannot blame his girl for her vengeance now.) “Arya. A girl does not need to do this if she does not want.”

Arya’s eyes narrow down at him and she bats away his hand, takes his cock in her own grip once more. He should have known that an attempt to comfort would only be met with spite. “She _does_ want,” she tells him forcefully, shifting in place to raise herself up on her knees. She bites her lip as the head of his prick touches the wet folds of her quim, damp and warm; it is all of his self-control not to thrust up into the hole so sweetly presented. That self-control is further tested as she holds him steady for her to sink down on, slowly.

His thighs are shaking with the exertion of stillness before the head has even fully breached, and the muscles in her face twitch as she grits her teeth in determination, sinking down the first few inches. The slide is smoother than he’d expected, with little resistance besides the tight squeezing of her virgin muscles. Both his hands now span her torso, holding her beneath the curves of her breasts. He can feel her ribs expand with the shaking breaths she takes.

“It hurts less than I thought it would,” she grunts, eyes closed, but her brows are still pulled in despite the statement so he knows that there is _some_ pain. He wonders what she has been told, what pain she had expected; likely her education on these matters came from septas who would not have thought to consider that her first partner may take her own pleasure into account. Certainly some lords she may have married would not have bothered to open her up with their mouths first.

“Take it slow,” he hisses for both their benefits, for she is so tight that it is nearly painful to _him._ “A girl is doing so good.”

She rocks upwards until the head of him is just barely inside, and then grinds back down again, taking a little more length within this time. Twice more she does this, until she is nearly halfway down, and when she rises from him the skin of what cock she has taken is shimmering with girlish wetness, but not blood. She must have broken her maidenhead at some point in her life already, whether upon a saddle or during her rigorous training in the House.

“It’s really not that bad,” she pants, sounding surprised. The movement of her hips is faster now and she braces her hands against his navel, using it to leverage her grinding, her breasts swaying as she moves. The feeling of her clinging walls, wet and hot, around his member is exquisite. It has been some time since he’s bedded a maiden, and he did not care _nearly_ as much for that girl as he does for this one. That is it Arya makes the experience more pleasurable than any sex he’s had in his life, which is… nearly worrying, for its implications.

“It will hurt more in the morning,” he assures her, jaw tense, and then gasps, “ _Arya,_ ” when she sinks down even further. She contracts purposefully when she lifts from him now; she has always been a tremendously fast learner, so long as it was of a subject she was interested in learning.

She sinks back down, her thighs twitching. The rolls of her hips as she rides him makes his eyes squeeze shut. She’s just so _tight,_ and so _warm._ “If we survive,” she says.

The statement strikes him like a slap, reminder of their situation, the precariousness of life. He cannot lose her. Not now. Not now that he knows the feelings between them are mutual. The grip of his hands on her sides tightens, and when she rises he thrusts up to chase her. It is the first time he has purposefully moved inside her, and the feelings causes her to gasp, eyes wide. “I will not let you die,” he growls at her.

“Do that again,” she demands, astonished, as if she either did not hear or is ignoring his statement. He holds her still, forcing her body to stay in place suspended over him, and thrusts. It is perhaps not as careful as it should be, pushing more of his length inside than she had taken on her own, but she just moans through her open mouth, staring down at him in surprise. “O-oh, fuck. _Again._ ”

Perhaps he was mistaken, and she can take him to the tilt this night. Her tolerance for this pain is surprisingly high for a virgin, but then again he supposes that she has endured enough pain in her life that this likely doesn’t even register upon the same scale as getting stabbed multiple times in the gut. Though he does know that it _will_ hurt her more in the morning, the same way that any muscle rarely used becomes pained after being stretched.

With each thrust inside her, each new stretch of his length she takes, her body seems to sag, to loose its shape. Within a minute of taking control of the pace, holding her upright above his hips, she is panting, leaning into him completely, her nails digging into the skin of his stomach, the muscles of his abdominals flexing beneath her palms. Clearly she is enjoying letting him do the work, but it is difficult to maintain the strength of holding her weight like this for so long. “Arya,” he groans, “can he--”

“Yes,” she agrees, nodding, her eyes closed and her chin dipped to her chest, not even knowing what it was he was going to ask. Her voice is a gasping keen. “Yes, yes, _yes--_ ”

Rolling, he twists them, and Arya yelps as they pivot until it is her back against the mattress and he is braced over her. She blinks at him, discombobulated, and then gasps anew when he guides his cock back inside her wet cunt from where it had slipped out as he’d rearranged them.

“Oh,” she breathes, her legs drawing up to either side of his waist as he slides into her. “Oh.”

He takes her hips in his hands, lifts it, pulls her until her lower half is supported by his own, and then shoves his way in. It punches a startled moan from her, accentuated by the wet slap of his testicles to her drooling slit. The mattress dips beneath the weight of his hands as he places them to either side of her face, the better to brace his grinding against. Their groins rub together; he can feel the way the folds of her vaginal lips part around the base of his cock. When he pulls out and thrusts back in, her own hands fly up to claw at his back.

Only now that she’s taken his full length does she seem to experience any of that discomfort they’d both expected, blinking up at him almost in confusion as he moves, as if she doesn’t know how to feel about the change in position. She bites her lip and shifts experimentally, moving forward into one of his thrusts, and this seems to please her because she lets out a squeaky breath; her cunny tightens further, muscles clenching in delight. It is like a vice around him.

He leans down over her, pressing their chests together, and it changes the way he hits inside of her, and this sound she makes is even _more_ enthusiastic, keening as her nipples scrape his chest.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, concerned by the lingering unsureness in her eyes even as her breath heaves through her nose.

“A pinch,” she admits after a moment, “deep inside.” Then, as if fearful that he will take this admission as weakness, or use it as excuse to stop, she snaps at him, “Don’t you dare stop. I’ve felt far worse.”

He knows she has. _He’s_ done far worse to her than this, inflicted much deeper and more bruising pains. He soothes her scowl with a kiss, and it’s as though she’d forgot kissing were a thing altogether and has just remembered, for as soon as their lips touch she devours the attention, mouth opening to slide her tongue along his, to click their teeth together in enthusiasm. Her hips are still grinding against his, meeting equally every thrust. The sound of his cock moving inside her is loud, the wetness of her cunt displaced from her feminine channel by the penetration.

Kissing distracts him though so he pulls his face away, tucks it against her throat. Without his focus being split he can devote the energy to finding a rhythm that matches her own, to paying attention to the way her breath catches on a squeal when he hits her inside just right. “So good,” he groans into her ear. Her nails rake down between his shoulder blades, lines of fire in his skin. It will hurt when he puts his armor back on. “She’s taking him so good.” She lets out a sweet little moan at the praise, seeming startled by the kindness.

Ah.

She’s one of _those._

This will be quite fun.

“She’s so tight around him,” he tells her softly, and she tightens even further, reaction to the words. “So warm. What a good girl she is, to take it like this.”

“ _Jaqen,_ ” she keens, and if that pinch inside is still painful to her she gives no indication, for her knees squeeze at his sides and her heels dig into his ass, as if trying to draw him in even deeper. She moans and whimpers throughout. “Jaqen, gods, god, it’s so-- _oh--_ ”

Setting his weight on one forearm, he moves the other hand down her body, tugging briefly at a nipple and groaning when her internal muscles spasm around his length. “Such a good girl,” he hisses, “with her sweet little cunt.” He’s unsure if it’s the praise or the vulgarity, or perhaps both, that makes her gasp for breath, but even if she prefers one then she certainly doesn’t seem offended by the other. “So eager for him, isn’t she? So eager and so wet.”

“Yes,” she pants, “yes, _yes yes yes--_ ”

She’s getting even hotter inside, her cunt tightening further around him with each thrust; the impact of their groins is loud in the otherwise silent room; each time he pushes into her his testicles adhere briefly to her sticky lower lips. His hand trails further to down her body, carefully skirting her pearl, to feel at her slit, the way it stretches around him.

“Does she like it?” The sound she makes when he runs his fingers over her filled seam is high-pitched and obscene, and not an answer. He grinds in harder, harshly, and now that sound is nearly a weep. “ _Does she?_ ”

She nods, whimpering, her lip back between her teeth. He wonders if she will break the skin, if their next kiss will taste of blood. “Yes,” she whines again, shifting, seeking to get even closer though there is no distance between them now, as though she wishes to climb directly into his skin. Sweat beads on her chest, makes her hair damp and cling to her shoulders, her throat, his own arm as she thrashes beneath him. “Yes, Jaqen, _yes, fuck--_ ”

Leaning over her like this strains him, so he sits back upright, takes her sides in his hands. Her hands leave his back, no longer able to reach him, and instead drift upwards above her head to grip at the sheets there. She cries in dismay when his touch leaves her slit, but then the next noises are grunting huffs as he uses his new hold to keep her steady as the speed of his hips against hers increases. The slap of skin against skin echos between them. Her breasts, framed by the tops of his hands, bounce with the force of the movement.

“Yes,” he agrees, breathing heavily, watching the motions of her nipples, the way her mouth opens and closes in a pleasured gape. “A man can tell she likes it. He can feel her squeezing around him. Such a good, lovely girl.”

From the way she’s crying out, rocking her hips up to meet each thrust, clawing at the fabric of the sheets, he knows she is close. Good, he thinks. Good that he could make this enjoyable for her. Good that the act of losing her virginity has not been made to seem a loss. “Jaqen--” she wails, and he thinks _good._ Good that it was with _him_ and no one else. He is not the sweetest lover, and perhaps another could please her better, but he is _selfish_ and he thinks _good._

“ _Harder,_ ” she urges, and maybe another could please her better but she seems well pleased enough. He obeys.

“Take it,” he growls at her, digging his nails into her skin to keep her in place, sacrificing speed for force. If the act of penetration would not have caused her to ache in the morning, then the rough pounding now certainly will. Perhaps she even enjoys that pain though. Perhaps she, like himself, relishes it. He lowers one of his hands back to her cunt, back to where he fucks into her, and now he presses down hard on her clit with his thumb. Her whole body begins to jerk. “Take it, lovely girl.”

Arya’s weeping increases, and he would think it agony, he would think it evidence that he should stop, but that the words she breathes, soft and needy, are, “Yes, please, please, yes, please, _please._ ” Perhaps he was wrong before. Perhaps he _could_ make her beg. A thought for another time, if she would consent to share his bed once more. There is so much he can show her, so much for her to feel. He will not let her die tonight. He will not let _himself_ die tonight. Not now. Not anymore.

“ _Take it,_ ” he demands, and, mouth open and eyes wide, she takes it.

She reaches her peak with a shivering scream, her thighs spasming around him, her cunt pulsing with heat. The sound of his movement becomes even louder, even wetter, as fluid soaks where their bodies meet; not a fountain, as some women do, but a gush that coats his groin and testicles, making an already-smooth slide almost slippery. He must stop thrusting in favor of grinding, for fear that if he pulls too far back he may simply slip out.

For several seconds she nearly vibrates beneath him, gasping and moaning, _clenching,_ and he grits his teeth and fucks her throughout despite how his body desires desperately to follow her immediately into the oblivion of release. “ _Jaqen,_ ” she cries, shaking, trembling, “ _Jaqen!_ ”

He should pull out. It is a thought that comes to him slowly, hazy with distraction, but he should pull out, spill himself upon her belly or thighs. It would be the kinder, the cleaner thing to do, except-- Arya’s legs tighten around his body as he tries to part his flesh from hers, though he is unsure if she quite grasps the reason _why_ he is attempting to leave her. “Lovely girl,” he gasps, gritting his teeth against the feeling of her cunt squeezing him, warm wet temptation. “He-- I need--”

“Don’t,” she hisses, and her hands leave the rumpled sheets to clutch at his wrists, “don’t you dare, don’t leave me again.” They move up his forearms to grip at his skin, pulling, trying to tug him closer, over her, “Don’t, please, I want to feel it-- feel _something--_ ” He groans, giving in, bending into her body when renewed fervor when she sighs, “Make me _take_ it, Jaqen--”

Clever girl, perhaps she has discerned that he had enjoyed the crude words too. She is learning so quickly; she must be _very_ interested in this subject.

The last vestiges of her orgasm leave her as he leans forward, covering her body with his own, his face pressed between her breasts as his hips piston into hers noisily. If the movement of his cock within her is painful without the distraction of release, she doesn’t let it show; now _she_ is speaking, whispering breathily into his ear, “It feels good, _fuck,_ it’s so thick-- give it to me-- gods-- ‘s good, _a-ahh!_ _Jaqen--_ ”

He comes with a grunt, his testicles tightening, his cock throbbing within her as he spills. It’s been some time since he’d laid with a woman, or even taken himself in hand, and so there is much of him to spill; after he is finished, his cock slips from her, loosing a torrent of seed which drips from her hole to pool beneath her ass. Only now does the grapple she’s held him in with her legs relax, and he leans back away from her with a sigh, observing the mess. There is some disgusting, masculine pride to see her cunny wet, dripping with his lust; as he watches, her muscles constrict and another thin stream of white trickles out.

Arya, still breathing heavily, leans up on her elbows to see it as well, a curious look in her eye. “Gross,” she says, and puts a hand between her legs to touch it, collecting some of the spend between her fingers. She rubs it against her knuckles and then grimaces. “It’s sticky.”

Yes, he thinks dryly, that is why he’d tried to pull out.

“The maester has moontea, yes?” he asks, sitting back on his rear. What a lovely sight. Arya, naked and flushed with sex, her hair sweaty against her shoulders, biting her lip as she feels with her fingers where his seed drips from between her still-spread legs. Next time he will eat it out of her. For now, he simply takes hold of the sheet and tugs it loose, then uses it to wipe up the mess.

Arya lets him without complaint. “Yes,” she says with an idle nod. Now that she’s caught her breath she seems… quiet, strange. She just watches as he cleans her thighs, that wanton kittenish behavior seeming to have passed with his peak. He feels discomfited at the silence, worry that perhaps she may regret what they’ve just done, but--

“I suppose we should get dressed now, then.” Her voice his cool, dispassionate. When he lifts his head to frown at her, she bites her lip and looks away.

Slowly, disappointment chasing that blissful feeling from before, he says, “A man can leave. If a girl needs to be alone. If she’s upset. Whatever she needs.”

Her eyes snap back onto him and her reply is instant and sharp, “ _No._ Whatever you’re thinking, _no._ I wanted that. I’m _glad_ we did it. I just--” She looks away again, opens her mouth, closes it once more. “It’s just,” she tries, and then swallows. She shifts backwards up the bed, drawing her legs together. “It’s only… we’re running out of time.”

Realization strikes him once more. The dead. They _are_ running out of time. And, perhaps, she is more upset by this than she’d previously wanted him to know. Coolness and dispassion now to cover the fear, fear that their sex had provided distraction from.

Leaning forward, slowly, slowly enough that she could pull away if she wished, he bends to place a kiss upon her hip. Her muscles are tense beneath his lips, but they lax, gradually, as he kisses higher, at her stomach, and higher still, between her breasts. Her skin tastes like sex and sweat. Her shoulders, her throat; when he reaches her mouth she sighs and kisses back, sweet and slow though no less sloppy than the previous ones they’ve shared.

“Our armors are not difficult to don,” he murmurs after nearly a minute of these short, gentle kisses, wet with tongue. “A man and girl can rise when the war horns are blown. He will hold her until then.

“I don’t _need_ to be held,” she tells him, defensive, but that she does not snap the words tells him likewise that she is still lulled by the softness of the moment, and she does not fight when he moves up the bed to settle beside her instead of at her feet.

“Perhaps,” he agrees, and wraps an arm around her. Such sinful indulgence this is, to feel her body so close. To want her, so dearly. He doubts he will be permitted back to the House after this. They will not kill him, for he left on His will, but neither he thinks will they tolerate his return. It has been some time since he has been no one. “But a man wants to hold her anyway.”

She submits under this admission, turning in his arms to press her face to his chest. She does it so easily, so readily, that he thinks that _she_ wants to be held, too. They are both still sticky with sweat, with spit; it will not be enjoyable for _either_ of them to return to their armor. Outside the window it is quiet and the snow falls, and somewhere in the darkness beyond the dead march their approach. But here and now it is warm, and he listens to her breathe. Neither of them sleep, though enough time passes that they likely could, and despite the nakedness they share neither of them try to initiate more sex.

Tomorrow, he thinks. Tomorrow when the dawn has come and they both live, he will share that carnal dance with her again.

“I’m glad,” she sighs eventually, suddenly, pressing the words quietly into his skin. “I’m glad it was you. I wanted to feel it, to know what it was like, so I would have done it anyway. But I’m glad it was you.”

He says nothing, just tightens his arms around her. Considering the circumstances, he cannot blame her for the desire; he would not have faulted her if she’d turned to another. And yet...

He is glad it was him, too.

**Author's Note:**

>  _earlier that evening_  
>  arya: hey do you have my staff  
> gendry: ya here you go  
> arya: cool thanks  
> gendry: .....so do you wanna like--  
> arya: ok bye *leaves*


End file.
